We landed in Auckland early morning on the 23rd, tired from the flight and little sleep. Went through Immigration, picking up another stamp in the passport. We have permission to be in New Zealand for up to 1 year. What an idea!
Then it was on to Customs, declaring the beef jerky, dried cranberries and cinnamon, as required. That shunted me over to Biosecurity for inspection. New Zealand has famously strict requirements to limit or eliminate the introduction of pests. It's a bit late. The horse is already out of the barn. They have succeeded in remaking New Zealand into a miniature England with all of the domestic crop and animal species, with all of the foreign huntable species and rats, with all of the Monterey pine plantations and English garden bushes and shrubs. But it's certainly laudable and maybe reflects a late dawning maturity over the wonderland that they inhabit and a desire to protect it from further inroads. My good friend Mike Rettie's stories of blasting opossums from the veranda while drinking gin and tonics when he was here in the 1970s is a good testimonial to the horrors unleashed by foreign pests.
So they inspect the foodstuffs and I pass. Other people had to show their boot bottoms to have the lugs cleaned out and their tent bottoms to make certain that there was not grass stems or mud that might harbor soil organisms. Good for them!
We had a wait for the flight to Christchurch and had a beautiful flight down along the spine of the two islands. The Southern Alps on the South Island are majestic, covered with new snow. A late and cold Spring (opposite seasons in the southern hemisphere) apparently led to loss of 10,000 new lambs. The drive into town from the airport is very pretty with long stretches of white flowering Japanese cherries along the roads. In one of the parks we passed, there were masses of daffodils--the first bulb of Spring--flowering. Someone had a great deal of foresight to have envisaged this and carried it off. Christchurch has been known as the Garden City for good reason.
The driver points out places where buildings have been torn down due to extensive earthquake damage and there are streets that have been closed due to many buildings threatening to fall down. Many chimneys in homes have fallen and there are blue tarps covering the gaps. The damage seems to be confined to the older buildings of unreinforced masonry. Decorative details and gargoyles have fallen. It's a shame because these are the most interesting buildings in the downtown area and to lose them is a shame. Christchurch has already had many of them replaced with soulless modern concrete highrises and this can only accelerate the process. But maybe the new ones will be architecturally more interesting than these 1980s and 1990s towers of bland.
Then it was on to Customs, declaring the beef jerky, dried cranberries and cinnamon, as required. That shunted me over to Biosecurity for inspection. New Zealand has famously strict requirements to limit or eliminate the introduction of pests. It's a bit late. The horse is already out of the barn. They have succeeded in remaking New Zealand into a miniature England with all of the domestic crop and animal species, with all of the foreign huntable species and rats, with all of the Monterey pine plantations and English garden bushes and shrubs. But it's certainly laudable and maybe reflects a late dawning maturity over the wonderland that they inhabit and a desire to protect it from further inroads. My good friend Mike Rettie's stories of blasting opossums from the veranda while drinking gin and tonics when he was here in the 1970s is a good testimonial to the horrors unleashed by foreign pests.
So they inspect the foodstuffs and I pass. Other people had to show their boot bottoms to have the lugs cleaned out and their tent bottoms to make certain that there was not grass stems or mud that might harbor soil organisms. Good for them!
We had a wait for the flight to Christchurch and had a beautiful flight down along the spine of the two islands. The Southern Alps on the South Island are majestic, covered with new snow. A late and cold Spring (opposite seasons in the southern hemisphere) apparently led to loss of 10,000 new lambs. The drive into town from the airport is very pretty with long stretches of white flowering Japanese cherries along the roads. In one of the parks we passed, there were masses of daffodils--the first bulb of Spring--flowering. Someone had a great deal of foresight to have envisaged this and carried it off. Christchurch has been known as the Garden City for good reason.
The driver points out places where buildings have been torn down due to extensive earthquake damage and there are streets that have been closed due to many buildings threatening to fall down. Many chimneys in homes have fallen and there are blue tarps covering the gaps. The damage seems to be confined to the older buildings of unreinforced masonry. Decorative details and gargoyles have fallen. It's a shame because these are the most interesting buildings in the downtown area and to lose them is a shame. Christchurch has already had many of them replaced with soulless modern concrete highrises and this can only accelerate the process. But maybe the new ones will be architecturally more interesting than these 1980s and 1990s towers of bland.
New Zealand sounds wonderful. Thanks for the terrific descriptions. You should buy some wool sweaters for the cold ahead!
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